Southern Utah is getting smarter about water conservation, but climate change, dwindling supplies and one of the fastest-growing populations in the nation are driving the fight for the Lake Powell Pipeline, a collection of local and state water managers said Monday.

State officials donned dark suits and sweated out a trip to St. George for a meeting of Gov. Gary Herbert's Executive Water Finance Board, a seven-person panel tasked with studying projects like the LPP and exploring whether there are ways for the state to pay for them.

The board, which last met in St. George in March, heard what was largely a rehash of the arguments that have surrounded the pipeline for more than a decade: how much water local communities think they have available, how much water they think is actually needed, how much the state can afford to build, how much the local population is expected to grow and how much that will add to the demand.

But if the arguments were aimed at the same issues, they were at least taking different angles.

Supply-side realities

In a series of presentations to the board, local water managers and other project proponents moved further away from demand-side arguments about Washington County's growing population and focused more on the supply-side realities of climate change, environmental protection and a regionwide dispute over water rights in the Southwest.

While widespread drought is spurring talk of possible renegotiation of the state-by-state rights to water from the Colorado River, Utah is still safe to pursue its allotment, the officials said. Climate change is threatening to make local water sources less and less reliable, they said.

"Whether you want to call that climate change or whatever, it's still there and as water managers we don't have the luxury to stick our heads in the sand and ignore that type of information," said Ron Thompson, the longtime general manager of the Washington County Water Conservancy District who has been at the forefront of the pipeline debate from the beginning.

In a series of slides showing decades-long trends toward drier climates and more drought, Thompson said his district now adds a 10 percent buffer to all of its water-supply planning, accounting for the latest forecasts from climate scientists who say the region is likely to get hotter and drier as it moves deeper into the 21st century.

According to the district's latest water use report, Washington County, population 160,000, used just less than 40,000 acre-feet of water in 2015. An acre-foot is about what a large suburban household averages over the course of a year.

The demand, however, is expected to double over the next 50 years; the St. George area, which as of last year ranked as the fastest-growing metropolitan population in the U.S., is expected to reach a population of more than 500,000, state demographers say.

Murky numbers

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Washington County residents tour the St. George Waste Water Treatment Plant near Bloomington Wednesday, May 9, 2018.(Photo: Chris Caldwell / The Spectrum & Daily News)

None of those numbers is going unchallenged.

During a public comment period at Monday's meeting, a line of residents stood up to speak against the pipeline, mostly arguing the state’s data is flawed or that stricter conservation measures haven’t been thoroughly enough explored.

Washington County has developed a reputation as a water guzzler, based on a 2010 estimate that the county averages 325 gallons per capita, per day — one of the highest rates in the country.

Water managers point to more recent data that shows that number improving — an analysis of 2015 usage found that residential households were only averaging 140 gallons per day — but critics pointed out that the 325 number is still being used to justify the need for the pipeline.

“This idea that Washington County is doing more for water conservation than any other place, I almost fell out of my seat laughing at that,” said Nick Schou, a conservation director with the Utah Rivers Council, an advocacy group based in northern Utah, alluding to a comment Thompson made about the area’s recent progress in per capita usage.

“There's just one number, and its 325 per person, per day, some of the highest use anywhere,” he said.

An inflated demand

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Construction crews continue building homes in the Ledges Wednesday, July 26, 2017. Local governments and city planners discuss the projected increase in population and the potential impacts on the area.(Photo: Chris Caldwell / The Spectrum & Daily News)

But there are relevant considerations to make, managers said, and full-time residents are only a part of the story.

About one out of every five Washington County homes is a "secondary" home, owned by snowbirds or vacationers or investors but not actually serving as a full-time residence, said Evan Curtis, state planning coordinator at the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget.

That means they add to the water demands for the area, even if their owners don't count toward the area's total population.

Curtis showed a chart examining how that trend has persisted in recent years. He noted that in some communities, more than a third of all homes being built count as secondary residences. More than 500 such homes were built in 2017 alone, he said.

Another 6 million people visit the area annually as tourists, adding to the demand.

Where does the water go?

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The Allred family cools off at the St. George splash pad Wednesday, June 20, 2018.(Photo: Chris Caldwell / The Spectrum & Daily News)

Houses aren't the only the place water gets used, though. Countywide, only about half of the total water use goes toward peoples' residences, said Brie Thompson, an associate general manager for the local water district.

Secondary homes use about 13 percent of the water, with another 13 percent going to commercial properties and less than 1 percent going to industrial properties.

The largest portion goes toward golf courses, with public and private courses combining to use some 2 billion gallons each year, according to the district's numbers.

But golf, a staple of the St. George's economy for decades because of the area's warm weather and resortlike reputation, would be hard to surrender.

The county's tourism office says local courses attract 300,000 golfers each year, generating an estimated $55 million in economic impact.

Golf courses are also an unusual case in that they get most of their water from "secondary" sources — non-potable water that is either reclaimed from a wastewater treatment plant or pulled out of the Virgin River and can't be used for household use.

Untapped resources

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Riders compete in round four of the Pro Watercross Tour at Sand Hollow Reservoir Saturday, June 27, 2015. The tour will continue through Texas, Georgia, West Virgina and Florida for a total of seven weeks.(Photo: Chris Caldwell / The Spectrum & Daily News)

The proposed 140-mile Lake Powell Pipeline would carry up to 77 million gallons per day through a buried 69-inch pipe from the lake to Sand Hollow Reservoir near St. George.

State and local water managers say the project is needed sometime in the 2020s, based on the area’s fast-paced population growth and expectations for new development.

The subject of more than $34 million in studies over the past decade, state officials are currently working to get federal approval to build it. The project is currently in the midst of a federal permitting process.

How much the project might cost and how it should be funded are still open questions, though, with water managers having already indicated the state would need to take on debt to bond for the project, with Southern Utah residents then taking on some combination of tax hikes, fees on new construction projects and increases in water rates. No official repayment plan has been published, and state lawmakers have passed legislation requiring that they approve whatever plan is proposed before construction begins.